To be honest, I'm rather surprised that props aren't used in more games. As you point out, "Call of Cthulhu" has an established history of incorporating physical representations of documents and items, but the same techniques are equally applicable to any genre. Maps, scrolls, and magic items, can add an immense amount to fantasy games and take a relatively minor amount of effort. For science fiction games, the plethora of fan-made props for "Firefly" and "Serenity" provide some great examples of how even small touches can take immersiveness to the next level.

@Propnomicon - Your quite welcome and I hope that I pronounced the name of the Blog correctly. As far as prop useage goes, it does surprise me as well. I think sometimes it really all about mindset. I think Many fantasy games fall into the trap of Let's Kill everything. This sort of makes props less useful. Where as something like CoC tends to be more of a thinking type game. There a good prop provides a lot for the player or players to think about.

The discussion of not-quite-RPGs had me remembering a card game from FFG, Cold War: CIA vs. KGB. We picked it up because it was a self-contained, non-collectible game for $25, which is pretty rare outside of Cheapass these days, but we kept playing it for the hilarity.

You don't quite get into the personas as much, except perhaps for the superpower of your choice, but the real fascination comes out in the gameplay. You're playing something akin to poker with people and organizations, which is great when you're paying attention. In the first game we played, the event was the Nobel peace prize ceremony. Guerillas killed the entire Government, but were then apprehended by the police. This left the prize squarely in the hands of the Russians... except that they threw away the chance so they could assassinate the American agent.

The turn after that, the Artists won the space race, and the American Phone Company and Trade Unions took over Cuba.

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